Advent and two photos - Advent IV, 18 December 2015

I confess that I have little affinity with the prescribed readings for Advent IV.  Mary sings the Magnificat for us, Elizabeth sings the Benedictus, just as the church prescribes.  It’s lovely, it’s familiar, it’s poetic, it is often set to music, and all is well.  All we wait for now is the magic of Christmas Eve.

But as we know, all is not well.  Nothing, not the most sublime Magnificat, makes up for two photos I saw.  The first showed a very small North African child, maybe three years old.  The child is naked, starved and hopelessly dehydrated, kneeling collapsed with head on the ground, drained of all energy.  Behind this child is a vulture, waiting until breathing stops.  I presume the photographer – I hope the photographer – picked the child up and showed some care.  The child was clearly dying.

The other photo was of what they themselves called “An ordinary American family”.  It is their Christmas photo to go out to family and friends, and there they are, all smiling, all clad in Christmas red, with holly and tinsel around.  There are two grandparents, maybe three adult daughters, one son-in-law (it’s not clear who they all are), and four grandchildren.  Each adult is wearing, or carrying, visibly and proudly, a lethal firearm.  Even grandson Jake, aged abut 6, right in the front, is clutching a gun clearly too heavy for him.  That, it seems to me, is child abuse.  The story informs us, It’s up to Americans to protect America – we’re just your ordinary American family.  We are given also a list, an inventory, of the weapons they keep oiled and ready, in their happy hospitable home.  The names of the weapons mean nothing to me, but they certainly sound malign and deadly.   At any rate, it would not be a smart move to enter their home uninvited or unexpected.

I can’t cope with this, and I am seriously out of my depth.  All I can suggest is that we remember that the Christian Christmas festival is about peace and joy.  (And with the debate going on with secularism at present, it is worth remembering that Christmas is a Christian festival, and it is not compulsory…) The best option for Christian believers is not despair, but reality nevertheless.  The world is not as the Warkworth Santa Parade depicts it.  The world of the close of 2015 is a sad and desperate place for millions of people.  Among them are an almost incredible 30% of NZ children officially below the poverty line.  We now know that nothing whatever is resolved by violence – guns, bombing, or the violence of words and attitudes.  Nothing is resolved by closed minds and anger.  Nothing will be resolved by tanks and artillery and blowing people and their homes to smithereens.  Why would anyone ever think it would?

As always in history, it will be people of peaceable hearts, people free within themselves, people of wisdom and quietness, who may know accurately what to do next.  People, that is to say, not frightened all the time, people who have learned to live with difference and colour, mystery and uncertainty.  People not obsessed with their own privileges, comfort and safety.  Some of them will be Christians, some Buddhists, Moslems, Sikhs, Hindus, some of them will be atheists, agnostics, crystal gazers, even some Presbyterians. 

I can’t imagine this sad world will ever be heavily populated by such people, but there will be a few, here and there, and these are the ones we should look to for enlightenment.  Quite a lot of them will be followers of Jesus.  That would be even better.  Meanwhile it is important, where we are, to have a happy Christmas, to bear the pain of the world, and to hear the angels sing. 

Our Warkworth Christian Meditation group is now in recess over Christmas and January.  We will resume, and these postings will resume, on Friday 5 February 2016.